


A Little Bit Warmer Than We Were Last Year

by ktfics



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Paranoia, Post-New Dangan Ronpa V3, Recovery, Unreliable Narrator, Virtual Reality, let Kokichi have friends that don't hate him 2k19, vr au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 01:11:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktfics/pseuds/ktfics
Summary: When Kokichi wakes up to a group of expectant-looking nurses and 13 disappointed ghosts, things make very little sense. As time goes on, things only get more confusing, and the paranoia that had protected him during the game refuses to abandon him so easily.





	A Little Bit Warmer Than We Were Last Year

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short angst fic focusing on the ramifications of Kokichi's paranoia from the game and it turned into a 7k recovery fic I don't know what happened. Also, if you couldn't tell from the tags, I'm in rarepair hell constantly lol. Title is from the song Fire by Special Explosion, and you can follow me on tumblr @dykeenvy if you wanna talk oumota (or any of the other ships I have listed lol).  
> WARNINGS: there's not really any violence that directly takes place in this fic but there are descriptions of what happened in the game. Also, Kokichi is paranoid, mildly disassociative, and out of touch with reality for the beginning portion of this fic so if that sounds potentially triggering you may not want to read this.

Kokichi makes a list.

Kokichi sits on his bed in the hospital and runs his fingers along his motive video and makes a list.

Kokichi sits on his bed and flips through a notebook he snatched from the warehouse and grips a pen with the Team Danganronpa logo emblazoned along the side and makes a list.

Kokichi sews up his own head wound with the small sewing kit Saihara-chan had gifted to him before he had ruined everything for good and allows the nurses to switch out his IV and he makes a list.

Kokichi is surrounded by people that don’t want him alive and he writes down all the ways he could die in a manner that will matter. The list is embarrassingly short, and no amount of detail put into his plans will make it any longer.

Kokichi is still surrounded by people that don’t want him alive as he writes down what was true and what was a lie. He keeps having to go back in and scribble things out and move them around, and the therapist keeps trying to fix it but it’s still wrong in different ways every time.

Kokichi lies in bed with the notebook under his pillow and looks outside and they’re not caged in, technically, but the nurses, or Monokuma, or maybe that boy in the cap with his gentle eyes that have never once looked in his direction for long enough won’t unlock his window.

Kokichi lies in bed and the only consistency in any of his notebooks is the inevitability of his own failure.

Kokichi lies in bed and wonders where he really is and how long it’s been since he ruined everything for good once again, and again, and again, and-

\--

When Kokichi wakes up to a group of expectant-looking nurses and 13 disappointed ghosts, things make very little sense. He gets the basic explanation as soon as he asks for one; that it was all a simulation, and that it was, indeed, a show, one that they had all auditioned and voluntarily given up their past lives for.

Kokichi spends the next week trying to figure out who the biggest liar is. It’s like a game in and of itself, almost; were his memories the biggest lies? If so, which ones? Which memories were wrong, and which were right?

Kokichi snags a notebook from the rec room in the hospital.

Maybe Team Danganronpa are the liars. Maybe this is another motive, and they’re all still in the game. Or maybe it has ended, but not for good, and they’ve been kidnapped again and the beginning of a new killing game is about to be take place in the hospital. Maybe this is some kind of reality TV show where all the contestants are given memories of being in a killing game and then their reactions are filmed.

Kokichi flips to the first page and fills it in to the margins.

Maybe it’s all the nurses who are lying to them. Momota makes a joke early on about how maybe they were all actually in hell, and the nurses were demons in disguise. Kokichi thinks it over carefully and replies with “We could be. I’m here, after all.”

But Momota hadn’t looked satisfied with proof for his theory, he had just gone on to reassure Kokichi that of course they were alive, they had to be, and none of them would have ended up in hell anyways.

Kokichi turns to a new page and jots down his own observations and Momota’s corresponding argument. He decides to table the theory for now.

Maybe Shirogane had told the most lies? Ouma has watched the final trial over and over again on his hospital room’s TV and there are things that don’t add up. The cospox still doesn’t make sense to him, and neither do Shirogane’s final words. So maybe they haven’t just woken up from VR, they’ve been placed back into it momentarily instead? Or maybe they’re in some kind of time loop and the killing game is about to start all over again? Maybe the pasts that they’ve been told are fake are actually real and their real-fake pasts are their fake-real pasts?

Kokichi smooths open the notebook and doodles the world within a world they could be living in.

It’s also possible that he’s lying to himself, of course. Kokichi had made quite a habit of that during the game, after all. Maybe he’s dead or dying and this fantasy world where they’re all alive is just the last comfort he’s cooked up for himself. Maybe he’s just dreaming from his dorm room as the killing game continues. Hell, maybe he’s having a nightmare from the warehouse he lives in with DICE.

Kokichi decides that’s a nice idea and dog ears the page when he writes down that theory.

The only possibility that Kokichi’s decided is not possible at all is that no one is lying. Someone is always lying to him. He had been able to put everything together during the game, all the lies and the half-truths, and he just has to do the same thing now. After all, if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that someone always has something to gain when truth falters, and everyone is always looking to gain something.

Kokichi rolls his head around his neck and lets his memories tumble like loose change, like a milk puzzle where all the pieces are secretly from different boxes.

When Kokichi wakes up, things make very little sense, and they only get more confusing from then on.

\--

The therapist and the nurses all try to prove to him that they are telling the truth.

They show him clips from the game and the simulation technology and photos of him as a younger child in an ugly black uniform.

They even show him the video of his own death, and Kokichi laughs and laughs and laughs at that, because people always were asking him to show his true colors, and now he can tell them with certainty it’s pink. Eventually, the staff lose their patience and leave him be as long as he’s quiet enough with his screaming.

They try to give him proof and Kokichi just remembers his motive video and the flashback lights and the destroyed world. They try to give him proof and he scans through his own memories, all of them jostling for space and shouting “it’s a lie!” in equal measures.

Kokichi is no detective, and it’s not his job to accept evidence at face value anymore. The only thing that he has learned is that reality is apparently as changeable as a pair of clothes, and Kokichi’s experiences all blend into each other like so many colors shoved together into the same washing machine.

This is something he’s going to have to figure out for himself.

\--

Momota looks at him funny whenever he talks about dying, which is weird, because they both are. Dying, that is.

“I know you’re kind of stupid, Momota-chan,” Kokichi’s fingers clench onto the cold metal of the hospital tray in front of him and the press below him, “but even you must know there’s not much time left now.”

“Ouma, don’t joke about that shit. We’re alive.” Momota tentatively reaches a hand up to rest it on Kokichi’s shoulder and he can feel his arm buckle and spasm under the pressure.

“Ha, ha, silly Momota-chan! You should know better than to touch an open wound!” Kokichi doubles over as the pain wrecks through his body and wrenches out the last lingering bits of humanity from him. “Man, Harumaki-chan sure knows how to pick her rat poison, I’m almost impressed!”

Across the table from him, Harukawa narrows her eyes as Kokichi stares right through her and at the crossbow that will ruin everything if he doesn’t act fast and do it himself first.

“Ouma, c’mon, you are joking, right? This isn’t funny, man.” The fork in Kokichi’s hand falls to the table with a clatter, along with the electrobomb.

“Momota-chan, I don’t want to die.” An odd sense of deja vu runs through him as he utters (repeats?) his words from the hangar. 

“You’re not- you’re not dying, hold on-”

“Don’t-” Kokichi hisses out a laugh between his teeth and waits for Kaito’s hands to wrap around his corpse of a body so they can get this show on the road already. “Don’t lie to me, Momota-chan!”

Kokichi’s body gives out on him and his head bangs down against the table with a sharp clang! as Shinguji’s seesaw trap attempts to claim another victim.

His blood is red and it clashes with his color scheme, Kokichi thinks. His blood is pink and there’s not nearly enough of it to appease the audience desperate for a sacrifice, for a tragedy.

Kaito’s hands do grip around his shoulders then, as he murmurs out curses under his breath and starts crudely dabbing at the blood welling up along his hairline with a napkin. Funny; it didn’t happen like this the first time.

“Someone get the fucking nurses in here, what’s even the point of being cooped up in this damn place if they’re not helping us! He’s not just faking this, something’s seriously wrong here!” Kokichi smiles. It was just like Momota to see right through him during his final moments.

“Ah, my knight in shining galaxy print!” Kokichi mumbles out those words through the numbness spreading through his face as Momota helps him stand and his ultimate lie can finally begin.

Kokichi vaguely realizes that Kaito’s jacket isn’t purple anymore, it’s just a black standard issue Team Danganronpa sweatshirt, but that’s okay, because Kaito still proceeds to support him on his trip to the press, and even tucks him in when they get there.

Kokichi just wonders why the other boy is crying for him. After all, he asked for this, didn’t he?

\--

Their therapist smiles at him and asks if he’s having a good day, or a bad day. The rest of the corpses in the room shift nervously as Kokichi contemplates the question.

“Well,” he watches Iruma’s ghost sneer at him from her own chair as he replies, “I can’t say for sure yet. But that’s a lie! I’m not having a good day, because I’m having a great day!”

The woman sitting across from him has platinum hair and a crisp suit and a clown mask. The woman sitting across from him is smiling hopefully and he thinks it might be a nice smile but he can’t help wondering when it got so hard to tell what was a lie and what wasn’t.

“Why don’t we all list some things that we’re grateful for today, then? Can you go first, Ouma-san?” Kokichi frowns at the formal name she uses for him.

“Well, Aneko-chan,” the therapist’s face falls when Kokichi addresses her, “I’m glad you asked!”

Kokichi’s mouth closes with a snap as he tries to remember his answer. He was sure he had one, at some point. How could he not be having a good time, surrounded by friends as he is?

“Well,” he starts again, “Takumi-chan and I played chess earlier, and I won, so-” Takumi makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat at his words, probably embarrassed by his loss. Kokichi did try to take it easy on his subordinates to keep them happy, but they usually enjoyed it just as much when he got to show off his own skills.

“Ouma, please, you knew me earlier-” Funny, Takumi’s hair isn’t the right color. It’s more of a magenta than the usual blond. Maybe he was able to scavenge some hair dye recently, good for him.

“Ouma-san, do you know where you are right now?” Aneko looks at him cautiously, patiently, and Kokichi knows he must’ve said something wrong. He tries to think back to the last conversation he had with her, the last time he saw her; it was when- when she was locked up and injured. He had let her get hurt.

“I’m sorry. I promised I’d keep you all safe. That’s supposed to be my job as the group’s leader.” The room stills at his words. “I said- I said I would find us a place where no one got hurt. And if I couldn’t find that place, then I was gonna make it.”

“Now’s not the time for your lies, you shitty shota!” A girl he only half-recognizes screams at him and Kokichi briefly wonders how she can talk at all with her throat crumpled in.

Kokichi laughs, open mouthed and scared. “Ah ha, but you can’t actually call it a lie, because when I said it, I thought it was true! Or maybe it is still a lie, it’s just now a particularly nasty one. Is it worse if I meant it, or if I didn’t?”

“Ouma,” The boy with the magenta hair gives him a smile, nervous and genuine in equal parts, an interesting smile that Kokichi realizes he does know and recognize and maybe even enjoy, sometimes, and says, “Do you know who you’re talking to?”

“Well,” Kokichi dry swallows and shudders through the oscillations of own lucidity, “Of course I know who I’m talking to, Momota-chan!” He blinks and tries to remember what he was just talking about, what they’re there for. “But I really am sorry, you know.”

Kaito leans back, startled at his words. “Wha- sorry for what?”

“Well,” Kokichi closes his eyes and practices making his hands, his toes, his thighs go numb. He tries to reimagine the order in which the press had squished him; first his feet, then his head, then everything, all at once. “If I’m alive right now, then surely our plan failed. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

Kokichi is so sure that those words are the only concrete truth he knows, but Momota just shakes his head vehemently at him in response. “We may have technically failed, Ouma, but it’s the best goddamn thing that’s ever happened to us. I’m so glad you’re alive, man.”

He thinks it is the first time in his life that someone has told him they wanted him alive out loud.

Though Kokichi is still not sure who in this world is lying to him, the sheer belief in Momota’s voice causes him to consider that the other boy probably isn’t.

For the first time, Kokichi realizes that failure may not have been his worst option. For the first time, Momota leaves him breathless in a way that has nothing to do with death, or violence, or even a good chase. He has a feeling that it isn’t going to be the last.

\--

Kokichi does have his good days.

Kokichi has days where he knows who everyone is, even if he still doesn’t quite know what’s real or why exactly they’re here. Kokichi has days where he can hold entire conversations without using the wrong names once. He gets really good at not making too many comments about what’s happening in the present, because even if he doesn’t understand why that’s bad, he’s smart enough to realize that his words often unsettle people in a way that used to be fun but isn’t anymore, not really.

Most of the time, it’s like nothing has changed at all. He talks to the others and sometimes says confusing, contradictory statements, but that’s not so unusual for him. On his more coherent days, Kokichi recognizes that that’s probably the problem, actually; they had designed him to twist truth and lies and set up no safety net for when they became so warped he could no longer tell them apart.

He walks a fine line between living comfortably with lies and accepting them as they come, and desperately trying to dig up the truth to try to make sense of things. On his good days, the fact that someone is lying to him isn’t bothersome, it’s an inevitability that he can live with.

But Kokichi also has his bad days. Days where nothing is real and there is nothing familiar to him left in this world and the only thing he wants is to go back to a time where the biggest lies in his life were easily recognizable and coming from his own mouth.

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that he’s alive. Sometimes, Kokichi’s ability to forget that he’s in his own body backfires and he has to dig his fingers into his skin just to get some semblance of control back.

Sometimes, it’s the opposite that happens, and the only thing he can think about is his body, and how he’s not supposed to be here, and the blood pounding through all of his wounds; the bruises around his neck and on his cheek and the laceration on his forehead and the arrow holes in his arm and his back and the separation of skin from body from bone all over and-

On days like those, the boy with the stupid magenta hair and the nice eyes and the easy smile will sit next to him and squeeze his hand and it is the only amount of pressure that could never hurt him. On days like those, the boy will talk to him like he’s human until he remembers it himself.

\--

Kokichi tries to be what he’s supposed to be.

He starts by trying to remember what he’s supposed to be in the first place; a scared little boy just mean enough and weird enough to keep people away? A supportive leader that shows no pain and and tells tall tales to keep a group of starving orphans from despairing at their reality? A villain meant to bring about hatred and sadness strong enough to prevent a group of kids from murdering anyone else but him?

None of that sounds right anymore.

Harukawa asks him once, tone cold and predatory, if he was proud of what he did. Kokichi knows his lines here, this should be easy. But he can’t quite conjure the right masks at the right time.

“Well, of course I am, Harumaki-chan! Did you think a supreme leader of evil like me was capable of feeling something like shame?” Ouma’s face scrunches up into an exaggerated cry instead of the twisted smile he was going for.

“Wait, hold on, that’s not right-” His expression morphs into an excited gleam.

“No, no, that’s not it-” His eyes go half-lidded and passive as he studies his fingernails with a bored look, but that’s not correct either. Kokichi tries again and gives a small smile while putting his hands behind his head.

After a few seconds pass, he manages a smile that instead stretches from ear to ear while he looks on at her with dark eyes, but he can only hold it for a moment before it wobbles and collapses.

“Sorry,” he murmurs to a bewildered Harukawa, “I’m not as good at pretending as I used to be. You can still try to kill me now like you’re supposed to, if you want.”

“Ouma,” her voice sounds strangled in a way that Kokichi almost laughs at, because that should be his job right now, “No one here wants you to pretend anymore. Just… be yourself. Without all the lies, or whatever.”

Kokichi gives her a blank stare, barely comprehending her words, and wonders when the assassin became more human than him. “But there is nothing underneath the lies. You get that, right? I’m hollow all the way through.”

Later that evening, Momota knocks on his door and spends the whole night talking to him, sorting through his memories and telling him ridiculous stories that, even as he is now, Kokichi can tell are lies meant to make him laugh.

Momota runs through everything that’s important to Kokichi, from pulling pranks with DICE to petty arguments waged just for the sake of yelling, and tells him right as the sun peeks over the horizon and they both pass out from exhaustion that Kokichi is the least hollow person he’s ever met. That even if he is full of shit 90% of the time, there’s always some piece of him, bright and shining and so very not-boring that makes it into every conversation.

Kokichi decides that if that is a lie (and he still can’t quite tell if Momota was ever a good liar or just a certifiable dumbass), it’s the nicest one he’s ever heard.

He later starts a new entry in his notebook that for once does not revolve around the validity of his existence but instead the things that make it worthwhile.

\--

The others start coming to talk with him more often.

Amami is the first, and he likes to just sit in Kokichi’s room with him. It seems the other boy’s memories are just as mutable as his are, and Amami enjoys talking with Kokichi about his sisters (though the number of them he has is ever-changing) and the adventures he may or may not have gone on. 

Kokichi regales him with stories of his own family in exchange, and both quietly point it out when they use the wrong names for one another with mutual understanding. Amami even helps him pull a prank on Momota one day, and ruffles his hair with a laugh right before Kokichi is chased around the hospital.

After realizing that Kokichi was the one constantly taking her colored pencils from the rec room, Angie also started visiting. She would burst into his room all smiles (because if Kokichi hadn’t been able to remember his role, Angie had never been able to leave hers behind), papers and markers bundled up in her arms, and drag Kokichi out to the gardens with her to draw together. 

Angie was a lot louder than Amami, but hanging out with her was still nice; he passes no judgements on her actions to save everyone and she does the same for him in return. Angie helps him pick through certain memories in his head and sketches out the faces of DICE for him when he confesses that even when he thinks they’re not real he still refuses to forget them.

One day, Iruma storms into his bedroom with what looks like half a toaster and a shoddy collection of tools. She plops herself right down on the end of his bed criss-cross applesauce with a fierce look in her eyes and starts working on some contraption while grumbling under her breath.

Kokichi blinks up at her; talking to Miu is especially difficult nowadays, for reasons beyond her vulgarity, so he quickly runs through the mental checklist the others have been helping him with to stay rooted in the present.

He starts by taking a few seconds to glance at her neck and the unhindered breaths leaving her mouth to confirm that she is, indeed, alive. He also studies the apparatus in her hands to double-check that it’s not the electrohammers, or the electrobombs, or the bugvac, or the remote control.

To be honest, it just looks like a pile of junk to him, but considering the size and shape of the spare parts he can conclude that they are entirely unrelated to any of the blueprints he’s drawn up for her, and the room around him solidifies back into the white walls of the hospital.

A few moments more pass of Miu determinedly looking down at her hands and making incoherent comments before she stills for just a second and fixes him with a glare. “I’m here to make amends with you, or whatever the fuck. Bakamatsu said that might… help. Both of us.” Kokichi tilts his head at her. “N-Not that I give a shit, or anything! Don’t accuse me of carin’ about you, you shitty shota!”

Kokichi laughs, and Iruma makes an offended-looking expression at him. She spends the next hour or so making insensitive remarks that Kokichi fires right back at her while tinkering, and talking to her is just as easy and fun as it always has been. No masks, no forced antagonism, just two people genuinely bitching at each other and revelling in being unpleasant. Iruma understands him in a way that Kokichi would be disgusted to ever admit out loud, and he knows for a fact that the same is true for her as well.

And if he occasionally pauses in the middle of his sentences, or refers to something that’s no longer relevant in their reality nowadays, she crudely pulls him back on track with an impolite shout. He can’t believe he ever thought she was dead.

“Now, listen up, cunt, because I’ve got something to say to you.” Iruma finally ceases her movements with a serious look on her face and points a wrench in his face. “It sucks that we tried to kill each other, or whatever. I still can’t fuckin’ believe you got to me first, by the way, but I guess that’s all done with now. The point is, at the end of the day, you were the only one in that damn game that recognized me as the gorgeous girl genius I fuckin’ am! So I guess we’re okay in my book, as long as you don’t start actin’ like a little bitchlet again.”

“Well,” Kokichi smiles, the last of his nervous jitters leaving his fingertips, “I can promise that we won’t try to kill each other ever again, but you will have to remember that I’m a liar if I do.”

Iruma smacks him upside the head with her free hand and yells at him for ruining her moment, but he doesn’t fail to notice how she’s able to make eye contact with him a lot easier after that, and when she leaves, she conveniently “forgets” to bring with her the small mechanical horse she’s crafted out of the toaster.

Akamatsu also occasionally tags along with Iruma on future trips, rolling her eyes with a soft smile at the other girl’s exclamations and commiserating with Kokichi on their mutual attempts to end the game and how much better everything had turned out than they could have possibly hoped for, despite it all.

Momota still visits him more than anyone, though the guilt that had initially filled his eyes has faded entirely with time. Every other day or so, the other boy barrages his door with a series of knocks before coming in and making himself at home. Sometimes, he brings a book or a board game with him. Once, he even brought a star map from the library and pointed out all the constellations he could see from the tiny window in Kokichi’s hospital room, until Kokichi couldn’t even continue calling him a nerd because he was so impressed.

That night had ended with Momota falling asleep on the edge of his bed for the third time that week, and Kokichi had been left to wonder with red cheeks when the warmth of the other boy’s body heat had become more familiar than the cold metal of the press.

Sometimes, Momota enters his room and paces and can barely speak at all. Sometimes, he comes in with clenched fists and reddened knuckles and an anger that has taken up space in the other boy’s body just as the paranoia had settled in his own.

On those days, Kokichi rips a page out from his notebook, smooths open Momota’s hands, and instructs him on how to fold the origami cranes that Shinguji had taught him to make on one of his visits, on a day when Kokichi didn’t know how to feel or what to do with his own limbs.

On those days, Momota’s violence and Kokichi’s paranoia are like old lovers, haunting the halls of the hospital and only disappearing when the two of them are able to create new memories and new feelings to take up the space their ghosts had occupied.

Momota also occasionally brings Harukawa with him, who huffs at the cluttered mess they’ve made of Kokichi’s room and apologizes once under her breath, and then again, louder and more confident. She doesn’t always stay long, but she does somehow teach them a new card game every time she visits, and Kokichi can see the half-smile she fights back when he reveals during one game that no, Momota is not actually that extraordinarily unlucky and yes, Kokichi has been cheating for the past hour and a half, much to the other boy’s chagrin.

Some of Kokichi’s favorite days are when Momota brings Harukawa and Yumeno both with him, because it seems in the time that he’s missed, Yumeno has developed a habit of hanging off of the other girl and calling her more nicknames than even Momota could have come up with, as Harukawa blushes furiously all the while. On those visits, Yumeno holds onto Harukawa’s hand and still manages to perform brilliant card tricks for them instead of the games they usually play.

The first time Yumeno comes over, right before she leaves she reintroduces herself to Kokichi as a magician instead of the Ultimate Mage, and tells him that she understands reality not lining up with your view of yourself.

As time goes on, Kokichi’s room becomes just as filled to the brim with nonsensical stuff as the one he lived in during the game was, but all the leftovers from his friends’ visits (cups of tea from Amami and sketches from Angie and trinkets from Miu and self-composed sheet music from Akamatsu and origami from Shinguji and cards from Harukawa and Yumeno and candy from Hoshi and crossword puzzles from Saihara and hair ribbons from Chabashira and flower crowns from Gonta and everything else, all his favorites from Momota) allow him to differentiate the hospital from his former prison.

As time goes on, it gets harder and harder to mistake any of his current belongings for the giant horse head or his motive video or the portable whiteboard he once owned. His notebook gets shoved under all of his other belongings and lost for days at a time increasingly more often, and is only searched for when he needs the paper.

He doesn’t think the nurses are very happy about the mess, though. And they’re not the only ones; the only reason he doesn’t have anything from Tojo is because every time she visits, what she tends to leave him with is a cleaner room and an exasperated smile.

\--

Kokichi stands in front of the mirror, scissors dangerously close to his neck as he attempts to make himself more recognizable.

“Are you sure about this, man?” Momota hovers anxiously an inch behind him, the other boy now eye level with Kokichi due to the stool they’d dragged in from the library.

“Of course, Momota-chan! I’ve trusted you with my life once before, haven’t I? Besides, it’s not like you to have confidence issues, now is it?” Momota gives him a roll of his eyes, before gently running his fingers through the strands of Kokichi’s hair with a sigh, grabbing onto a lock, and snipping. The faded purple end falls to the floor with a soft swish.

“Kami-sama says it’s going to turn out wonderfully, Kaito!” Angie calls out to the two of them cheerfully through the open bathroom door from her perch on Kokichi’s bed.

“Haah!” Miu looks up from the disassembled TV she’s been working on since she arrived. “Kami-sama’s an even worse liar than fuckin’ Ouma!”

Momota breathes in and out slowly before shifting slightly to make a second cut. “I still don’t get why you wanted me to be the one to freakin’ do this instead of Angie,” he grumbles.

“Did you see Angie-chan’s concept art? I know I’m a looker, Momota-chan, but a pretty face can only pull off so much! I’m not letting her near my hair with those kinds of ideas running through her head!” Amami holds up one of the sketches he’s been leafing through.

“I don’t know, Ouma-kun, I think this one could be a good look on you.” Angie nods enthusiastically at Amami's friendly smile and starts discussing the undercut she had proposed for Ouma with him before he cuts them two of them off.

“Not all of us can be punk, Amami-chan! Besides, there’s no way I’m gonna risk getting close to matching in style with Momota-chan!” Kokichi goes to stick his tongue out at the others, but Momota brings his free hand up to slide across his jawline to keep his head in place as another strand of hair falls to the floor.

“Stop moving, you little rascal. And I’m starting to think you’re going to insult my hair regardless of what I do with it.” Momota steps back for a second to look at the progress he’s already made, and Kokichi takes the opportunity to turn around and run his hand across the freshly-buzzed section of Momota’s head that Angie had finished up minutes ago. His hair still has the same gelled-up volume that it did before, but the sides of it are now shaved, and Angie even detailed in a small star on one side.

“Yup yup, you’ve got that right! Hey, maybe the problem’s your face, actually-” Kaito barks out a laugh before putting his hands on Kokichi’s shoulders and rotating him to face the mirror once more, his cheeks now slightly flushed.

“Piss off, Ouma!” Even with his harsh words, Kaito can’t quite disguise the laugh still in his voice or the smile curling at his lips.

A few minutes of hushed, intermittent conversation pass between them as Kaito works.

“Hey, are you two almost fuckin’ done in there? Stop fuckin’ sucking each other’s dicks so we can really get this show on the road baby!” Iruma storms her way into the already-small bathroom to take a look at Kokichi’s hair.

Momota is nearly done at this point; Kokichi didn’t want much cut off, just the dyed ends that had run too long past his shoulders for his comfort, and Kaito had worked relatively quickly once he had gotten over his initial fears.

“Huh, it actually wouldn’t look too bad if it wasn’t on a fucking gremlin.” Kokichi huffs at her as Momota finishes up the last snips of hair. “But now it’s time for the real fun to begin!”

Iruma proudly holds up a container of bleach with one of her hands and a few different pots of hair dye with the other. “I still don’t know how you managed to get this shit in here, I thought we were supposed to look fuckin’ perfect for the interviews or whatever.”

Kokichi shares a sneaky look with Amami as the two others cram into the bathroom with the three of them. The pressure is uncomfortable for only a moment, as Kokichi allows himself to breathe through it and take comfort in Momota’s grounding presence still right behind him.

“Well,” Amami laughs gently, “Let’s just say we have our ways.” Apparently, all it took to smuggle in an Amazon package was a pretty face to distract the mailroom secretary and Ouma’s ability to pickpocket an executive’s phone and place an order before returning it. It was easier than sneaking out to go to a nearby store when they didn’t have any money would have been, at any rate.

“Next time, you two should put your talents to an actual good use and bring in some goddamn booze, that’s all I’m sayin’!” Iruma gives a short laugh at her own joke before setting out their supplies on the sink.

“Alright, what colors we doin’? I’m thinkin’ some orange for myself, it’ll really piss ‘em off if I go against my color scheme on top of the bangin’ pixie cut the holy bitch hooked me up with!” Kokichi examines the colorful bottles of dye lined up in front of him. Momota’s hands go out to grab a baby pink color, as Angie snatches up a bright yellow dye for her own newfound bob and Rantaro goes for a red-toned chestnut brown shade.

He decides on a much lighter, almost lilac, shade of purple than he had donned during the game. New enough to differentiate between who he was and who he is now, but similar enough to still be familiar. “Alright, but if I’m going to let you do this, we’re clear that I just want the tips dyed, right, Iruma-chan?”

“Hah! That’s what she fuckin’ said!” Iruma ignores the nonsensicality of her own statement and yanks the colors from their hands before declaring that she, Angie, and Amami will have their hair dye applied first since they don’t need to bleach it, and then she’ll strip Ouma and Momota’s hair and apply their color.

“Relax, I may be a bitch but I know what I’m fuckin’ doing, shota.” Iruma then ushers the two of them out of the bathroom, not even waiting for anyone to sweep up the hair still littering the floor, and Momota plops down on Kokichi’s bed next to him as they wait.

“Hey,” Momota leans over and nudges Kokichi with his shoulder, “I heard they’re gonna start giving people the go ahead to leave.”

Kokichi nods. The nurses had told him that he’d need to take a psych test before he could be cleared to go, but the fact that he’s going to get out of this place at all was nothing short of a miracle. He had spent so much time here barely cognizant of the fact that there was an outside world to go to that for once, he has no plan made for the future.

“Listen, man,” Momota waits for Kokichi to turn and look him in the eyes, and he finds himself smiling at the sincerity of the gesture. “I’m not leaving here without you. Whether you like it or not.”

“Ah, you just can’t keep away from little old me, can you, Momota-chan? Am I that irresistible to you?” Kokichi bats his eyelashes at the other boy in a way that’s meant to be condescending, but Momota just scoffs and gives him an almost-fond grin. “What will you do without me when we do leave here, huh?”

“Well, uh,” and now Momota is the one to turn away and break eye contact, “I was thinking-”

“For once-”

He barks out a laugh and a little bit of the tension leaves his shoulders. “Shut up, hold on! I was just thinking, well, we still both have our bad days, y’know, and we’ve both gotten pretty good at dealing with ‘em together, and, well, I don’t have any folks to go home to, and as far as I know, you don’t either, so maybe it’d be a good idea if, uh-”

“You want to move in together.” A blush blooms across Momota’s face.

“Yeah. I do.” Kokichi slides his hand on top of one of Momota’s and curls his small fingers around the other boy’s knuckles.

“To be honest,” and Momota gives a chuckle at that statement coming from him, “I hadn’t thought about what I wanted to do when we were allowed to leave. Sometimes I’m still under the press, you know?”

Momota nods. “I know. Hey?” He flips his hand around to interlock his fingers with Kokichi’s. “Why don’t we just… wing it? Start with getting an apartment and figure everything else out from there?” Kokichi hums in response.

“Whelp, I can’t say it sounds like a plan, but maybe it’s better that it doesn’t. Overthinking things certainly hasn’t helped me in the past.” Momota beams at him in response, his elation nearly palpable in the air.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Though, considering your habit of under-thinking things, maybe you could stand to-”

A grin nearly matching the wattage of Momota’s spreads across Kokichi’s face as the other boy laughs and nudges him with his shoulder again. “Oh my God, has anyone ever told you you’re the worst-”

“Look at it this way, now that you’re stuck with me, you’ll be able to remind me of that everyday-”

“Alright, sluts!” Iruma barges back into the room, her hair covered in such a bright orange dye that it could burn someone’s retinas. “Time for some harsh chemical treatment, get your asses in here!” She pauses at the sight of Kokichi and Kaito, leaning in towards each other, mid-laugh. “Wha- are you two pussies holding hands? No fuckin’ way!”

Angie’s face, now haloed by her yellow dye, pops up from behind Iruma’s shoulder as Amami walks around those two and back into Kokichi’s room.

“Iruma-san, I think they were having a private conversation.” Amami has seemingly mastered the disappointed older brother voice, and Iruma is suitably cowed until Momota speaks up.

“Ah, no, we were just talking about what we’re gonna do when they finally let us out of here.” He brings one hand up behind his head sheepishly but doesn’t bother removing the other from Kokichi’s grasp.

“Oh! Angie and Tenko have decided to share an apartment with Maki and Himiko!” Angie bounces onto the bed next to Kokichi and Momota as she shares her news.

“That’s really great, Angie-san. I think Saihara-kun, Shinguji-kun, and I are gonna be moving in together. We’ve been talking about taking a vacation outside of Japan once the interview season’s over using Saihara-kun’s winner’s bonus, too.” Amami perches on the very end of Kokichi’s bed as he talks to them.

“Yeah, well, Bakamatsu’s- I mean- Kaede’s,” Iruma stammers through a blush but recovers her composure quickly, “already begged me to move in with her when this shit’s done with! It’s gonna be an all-you-can-eat buffet every night when we get outta here, if you know what I mean! Pussy, baby!” Iruma snaps off the pair of disposable gloves she was wearing and throws them back into the bathroom without bothering to aim for the trash can, before giving a wild laugh and attempting to lay across Momota, Angie, and Kokichi, entirely negligent of the dye still staining her hair.

“Oh, my fucking god, Iruma-” Kaito starts to give her a half-hearted shove while letting out a bewildered laugh right as a brusque knock sounds on the door.

The five of them all pause, aware of the fact that what they’re doing would be heavily frowned upon, even if it isn’t a direct violation of their contracts.

“Hey, Ouma? Is Momota in there, I need to talk to-” Harukawa pushes open the door, takes one look at all of them piled up on the same bed with their hair in various levels of disarray, and stills.

“Um, we can explain-” Maki cuts off Momota as she finishes walking into the room and shuts the door behind her.

“How were any of you able to get your hands on some scissors? I’ve been wanting to cut off this dead weight ever since I woke up.” Her sentence is punctuated with a swish of her twin tails.

Angie disrupts Iruma’s makeshift seat by springing up, bounding over to Maki, and tugging her towards the bathroom, who grimaces as soon as she sees the mess of hair, dye, and gloves they’ve made. “Nyahaha, Angie has some ideas for cut and color, Maki! Come, come!”

It turns out, hair dye wasn’t necessary when Maki spotted the electric razor on the shelf and decided a buzz cut would look best.

It takes the whole rest of the day for everyone’s transformations to be complete, and when the others finally all filter out of his room to get some sleep, Kokichi realizes that he now has all the time in the world stretching out in front of him to try out different hairstyles and make impulsive decisions with friends.

The realization of security without fear of future danger is a comfort he’s never once had before, and the surprising rush of joy it brings him almost leaves him dizzy.

\--

Kokichi can feel the sun beaming down on his back from its place high in the sky as he and Kaito stand in front of the door to their new apartment building.

Kaito has one of Kokichi’s hands loosely gripped in his as both boys use their other hands to hold the suitcases full of belongings they’ve brought with them from the hospital. They had done their best to clean out the mess that Kokichi’s room had became and cram everything into the bags Team Danganronpa had provided them with, but some things still had to be thrown out or left behind.

Somehow, Kokichi doesn’t consider discarding his well-worn notebook a loss.

Kaito shifts the suitcase in his hand to better balance it and stares at the door in front of them. “Well, I’m pretty sure this is it.”

Kokichi takes a second to revel in the warmth of the other boy’s hand and the sun behind them and the future in front of them.

“Hey, Momota-chan?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re alive.” Kaito turns to give him a wide, exuberant grin.

“Yeah. Yeah, we fuckin’ are.” Kokichi giggles.

“Hey, Kaito-chan?”

“Y-Yeah?” Kokichi takes advantage of Kaito’s surprise to lean up, place a kiss on his cheek with a loud smacking noise, and shove his suitcase into the boy’s other hand before running ahead of him into their new home.

“I looooove you!” Behind him, Kaito splutters in the sunlight and rushes forward to try to keep pace with Kokichi.

“Hey, man, wait up!” They make it halfway through the lobby before Kaito catches up to him, drops their suitcases, and grabs onto to Kokichi’s sleeve.

“What is it-” Kokichi’s playful question is cut off abruptly.

The sudden pressure of Kaito’s lips on his is warmer than any star could possibly be, and even the memory of the intimacy of the press pales in comparison.

“I told you. You’re not leaving me now, Kokichi.”

And, well, if Kokichi can’t stop blushing even while accusing Kaito of being too sappy, at the least the other boy is just as red as he is.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to pace this realistically but also if it wasn't clear this does take place over the course of many weeks. Also, the line "when I said it, I thought it was true" comes from the song Saint Bernard by Lincoln. It's a very good Kokichi song, highly recommend. I figured it was good to cite it down here but considering this is just fanfiction I don't think I'll be arrested for plagiarism regardless lmaooo. Also, that hair cutting scene was too fun for me to write; just imagine Kaito, who's supposed to be the archetypal manly hero character, showing up to an interview with baby pink hair. Love it. Also, Rantaro is still an avocado, just... the outside of an avocado now lol.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments are appreciated, they really keep me going ! :)


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